RE: Fees

[Guest guest]

Hi all,

Regarding the mention of charging $25 and considering dropping your fee

to $10.

 

Your fee subconsciously determines the value that the public places on

your service(product). An easy example: there is a reason people are

willing to pay 2-3x the price for a 2-liter bottle of Coca-Cola than for

the 'equivalent' generic store brand. The generic brand is much

cheaper, objectively probably just as good, yet the majority of people

will put the more expensive product in there cart. A friend willingly

paid $8000 for breast implants when she could have gotten them done by

other surgeons for $3000-5000. The assumption was that the surgeon that

charged more must be better (whether he was in fact or not).

 

I work out of a chiropractor's office, and deal with mostly

insurance/no-fault patients (no, I am not a mill, I treat 3-10 patients

per day with legitimate acupuncture). For patients that are not covered

through insurance, that request acupuncture, I had made an agreement

with the chiropractor to reduce my standard fee that I bill the

insurance companies, in order to give the patients a break since they

were usually paying chiropractic copays, and also (and here's the

kicker) to make it more affordable to more people and thereby increase

my business.

 

Didn't work. As an example: an elderly woman came in for a treatment

that her daughter had paid for as a gift. She had many problems that a

course of acupuncture treatments would definitely have helped. One of

the first things the elderly patient asked me was, " How much do you

charge? " When I told her, " $35 " , she responded, " Oh, you must be new. "

 

Burned.

 

I explained why I charged so little, and that I had 8 years experience

in private practice, etc.

She never came back. Perhaps she just didn't like acupuncture, me,

didn't have enough money, whatever. The point is that my low fee

instantly prejudiced her as to my abilities/status. And I didn't blame,

especially when the local acupuncture school's student clinic charges

the same price, for what amounts to basically a public treatment by

amateurs/novices.

 

Pete (et al), you may want to consider raising your prices; lowering

them makes no sense to me. Also, when your prices are higher, you will

attract a greater percentage of patients that will be willing and active

patients, patients that have decided to invest in their health, and they

will usually make better patients with better results...which leads to

positive word of mouth and more patients. My acup. school charged ~$300

for their stop-smoking treatment program...which pays for 2

treatments...expensive, but a way of attracting only the most committed

patients...which is a huge part of being able to quit smoking, so it

made business sense.

 

My thoughts anyway.

Cheers,

K. Hamill, L.Ac.

 

(There is also the issue of charging low fees negatively affecting the

future rate that insurance companies will determine is fair and

average...probably one of the valid reasons other local practitioners

are angry about anyone charging too little).